UP FRONT

LILA ORBACH

Special to The Jewish News

s some of Detroit's Jewish
community continue to wan-
der further and further west,
backers of the year-old Neighborhood
Project, a program aimed at curbing
the Jewish exodus from Oak Park and
Southfield, feel they are successfully
holding back the tide.
"The Project has gone beyond our
expectations," said Dr. Conrad Giles,
president of the Jewish Welfare
Federation which organized the pro-
ject. "It's now well beyond what we
dared dream."
Funded by United Jewish
Charities, the Neighborhood Project
began little more than a year ago
with some $250,000. The money was
to be used for interest-free loans and
other incentives to assist Jews in buy-
ing homes in the Oak Park/Southfield
areas and enhancing the already ex-
isting facilities in order to encourage
Jews to stay.
Since December 1986, the Project
has granted more than 155 interest-
free loans to Jewish home buyers (11
this month alone) totalling nearly
$750,000. And they aren't stopping
there.
Hoping for another $250,000 in
funding, Project director Norma
Silver says the scores of Jewish
families who purchased homes in the
targeted areas this year are only the
beginning.
"If we continue at the rate we're
going, we could ultimately move in
close to 700 families over the next few

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years," said Silver, who already has a
sizeable stack of applications for con-
sideration at the monthly loan review
committee meeting in February.
While those involved with the
Neighborhood Project are quick to
praise its progress, the program has
been subject to criticism. There are
those who say it began ten years too
late and that the numbers of families
moving in could never compare to the
numbers of those who have already
headed for the northwest suburbs,
primarily West Bloomfield.
"It's not too late," countered direc-
tor Silver. "It's proving not to be too
late. We want to make a Jewish
presence felt and maintained in those
areas!'
Not only have Jews once again
started buying homes in the target
areas, but backers say the the Jewish
community there is getting younger.
Of those who bought homes through
the project this past year, 80 percent
are under 40. Sixty percent are
couples with young children looking
to buy their first home. Twenty-four
percent are couples without children.
Ten percent are singles and six per-
cent are singles with children.
More than half of those who pur-
chased homes this year were already
affiliated with a synagogue. Forty-five
percent are Conservative, 28 percent
Orthodox, 22 percent Reform and five
percent did not label themselves in
any of these three categories.
The majority of new buyers have
an annual income of between $30,000
and $60,000. "This is not a program

Continued on Page 22

Adam Teite lbau m

Neighborhood Project
Cites Successful Year

The old and the renewed in Ramle: An evolving relationship.

Detroit Considers A New
Project Renewal Town

Feb. 16 vote of the Jewish Welfare

DAVID HOLZEL

Staff Writer

hen the Romans destroyed
the Temple in Jerusalem in
70 CE, leading rabbis of the
time set up a center of study and wor-
ship in a little Judean town called
Yavne.
Yavne today is an up-and-coming
small town about 15 miles south of
Tel Aviv. In contrast, the town's Neot
Shazar neighborhood is a "pocket of
poverty in an otherwise upbeat, for-
ward moving area," according to
Lawrence Jackier, chairman of
Detroit's Project Renewal Committee.
A proposal that Neot Shazar
become Detroit's second Project
Renewal neighborhood is awaiting a

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Federation Board of Governors. The
recommendation has already been
passed by Federation's officers and ex-
ecutive committee, Jackier said.
Project Renewal pairs Diaspora
communities with Israeli
neighborhoods lacking community
services. With Diaspora funding,
neighborhoods are encouraged to
assess their own needs, rather than
have a solution imposed from outside.
Last summer, Detroit began to wrap
up its seven-year commitment to its
first Project Renewal partner, the
Agash-Bilu quarter of Ramle.
Detroiters raised about $5 million to
revitalize that neighborhood.
Yavne is different than Ramle,

Continued on Page 20

'ROUND UP

Fliers Accuse
Sociology Prof.

Wayne State University of-
ficials say they have no idea
who distributed fliers on cam-
pus accusing sociology Prof.
Leon Warshay of being an
Israeli spy.
The fliers, posted during
December's winter recess,
called on students to boycott
Prof. Warshay's courses. The
fliers were signed "Young
Americans for Liberty," a
group not recognized as
either a formal or informal
campus organization, accor-
ding to William Markus, vice
president for student affairs.
"It's nasty business," he
said, theorizing that the fliers
may have been distributed by
outside agitators.
Neither the sociology

department nor the universi-
ty has taken any actions in
support of Warshay, who is ac-
tive with the Zionist
Organization of America and
the Detroit Zionist Federa-
tion. He has been the reci-
pient of similar charges in the
past. "It's no joke," Warshay
said.
department
Sociology
Chairman Mary Cay Seng-
stock expressed confidence in
Prof. Warshay. "We have no
intentions of investigating
(him):'

Campers Jam
Jamboree

More than 800 youngsters
attended the Fresh Air Socie-
ty's annual Tamarack Jam-
boree on Sunday, as the com-
munal camping agency tries

to increase its summer camp
attendance from last year's
1,465.
FAS Executive Director
Sam Fisher said the jamboree
at the Jewish Community
Center is a reunion for
campers and counselors, and
a way of saying it is camp
registration time again.
The agency had two other
programs last Sunday which
may interest children in its
summer camps. The Jewish
Experiences for Families con-
ducted one of its programs at
Temple Emanu-El. At the
same time, a new multi-
media Tu b'Shevat program
was held at Temple Beth El.
Based on The Lorex story by
Dr. Seuss, the Tu b'Shevat
presentation is being offered
to all Jewish schools in the
Detroit area.

NBC To Air
Lynching Story

The Murder of Mary
Phagan in 1913, which led to
the resurgence of the Ku
Klux Klan, the lynching of
the innocent Jew Leo Frank,
and the formation of the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith, will be the subject of
a two-part, five-hour mini-
series beginning Sunday
night on NBC-TV.
The program will be aired
from 8:30-11 p.m. Sunday and
9-11:30 p.m. Tuesday on
WDIV in Detroit (Ch.4).
Frank was lynched in 1915,
two months after the gover-
nor of Georgia commuted his
death sentence.
In 1982, witness Alonzo
Mann testified that a factory
janitor had killed Mary

Phagan and Mann had kept
quiet out of fear. But it was
not until 1986, after a four-
year campaign by Jewish
organzations, that the
Georgia State Board of Par-
dons posthumously cleared
Leo Frank.

Abduction Was
Just Theater

Amsterdam (JTA) — A
Dutch Jewish actor confessed
to Belgian police Jan. 5 that
his kidnapping by Dutch neo-
Nazis in Brugge, Belgium
last month was strictly
theater.
Jules Croiset admitted that
he fabricated his Dec. 4 story
that two days earlier he had
been seized by three Dutch
fascist youth.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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